Metro Vancouver municipalities are spending 32 per cent more on operations per capita than they did a decade ago, according to a new study published by the Business Council of British Columbia.

The study found that real government operating expenditures - not including capital spending - in all 21 Metro Vancouver municipalities increased to $3.1 billion in 2010 from $1.7 billion in 2000, or to $1,321 per person from $844 per person.

Overall spending increased by 80 per cent before adjusting for population growth and inflation, the council announced in a news release Monday. Provincial spending - which includes services like health care and education - only increased 10 per cent during the same decade.

"The report said higher municipal spending can be linked to steady increases in property taxes, which provide more revenue for governments to spend every year.

Additionally, the report said increased spending is connected to larger government bureaucracies. City staff grew an average of 29 per cent from 2001 to 2011 across the municipalities. Provincial employment, in comparison, rose by 18 per cent.

The study, Up and Away: The Growth of Municipal Spending in Metro Vancouver, calls on municipal governments to rein in spending and to collaborate between levels of government to reduce expenditures."

"Residents and businesses are looking for leaders to hold the line on spending and find ways to create efficiencies, collaborate, and use best practices to reallocate expenditures to the highest priority areas," Jock Finlayson, the council's Chief Policy Officer, said in the release.

West Vancouver was the biggest spender at $2,040 per person in 2010 according to the report, followed by New Westminster at $1,506 and the City of Vancouver at $1,461.

Surrey - at $750 - spent the least per capita of all the municipalities. Despite New Westminster's ranking as the second highest spender, its percentage increase in spending was the lowest at 11.7 per cent. Lions Bay, at the other end of the spectrum, increased its spending 169.2 per cent, to $1,303.41 in 2010 from $484.19 in 2000.

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New study shows increase in Metro Vancouver spending

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